It is in the darkness that he misses Sirius most.

Daylight hours are filled with letters, research, meetings--a million things to keep him busy, keep him moving. When he does stop, when he remembers, it is other things. It is the reflection of his face in Lily's eyes. It is James' smile, his long limbs somehow turning graceful in the air, his fingers wrapped around the Quaffle. It is a shy, hesitant smile on Peter's face, a "Remus?", a press of lips and muffled sounds and a secret that is theirs, because it has always been James and Sirius, because Peter has never been enough, because Remus has never belonged.

At night, though, when it is dark, especially when the moon is new and he thinks most clearly, then he thinks of Sirius.

It is not hard to imagine Sirius skulking in shadows, Sirius memorizing faces, names, notes, Sirius at Voldemort's side, the Dark Lord's, not kneeling and bowing and scraping but right there in the Inner Circle, whispering crucio and watching Regulus scream, avada kedavra and Regulus--it is not hard. It breaks his heart, but it is easy.

At night he thinks of Sirius and whispered curses in the dark and hands that didn't belong to Peter and love and guilt and Peter was never enough, and Remus could never make him be more. Poor sweet Peter, who loved James even more than Remus did, because Remus could not bring himself to warn James away.

They are dead now, both of them, and he will not think of them and Sirius in the same breath, and he will not think of Sirius in daylight and warmth and happier times, and he cannot stop thinking entirely.

In the daylight he visits graveyards and tutors little children and writes papers on Dark Creatures, and at night he becomes one and loves one and howls into the wind.